Rin, Holden, and Nassun: Top Three Books of 2018 (Fiction)

I’m a genre fiction reader, primarily in the science fiction and fantasy categories. And thanks to Sword & Laser I read at least one book each month. This year I read 22 books in these categories (and zero “literary” fiction). These are my favorite three titles of the year.

The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2)
By N.K. Jemisin
Book two in a series and winner of the Hugo Award. Her writing is creative, engaging, and visual. As a middle-book in a trilogy, it carries the story forward very well and sets the stage for a culmination in the final book. The balance of realism, science, and magic pulls the reader into this amazing world. Great writing, world-building, and storytelling. The presence of inequities, racism, class, violence, and leadership are essential components for Obelisk Gate. If you haven’t picked up this series yet, maybe now is the time since all three books are published.

From Goodreads: “The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever. It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy. It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last.”

Persepolis Rising (The Expanse #7)
By James S.A. Corey
I’m completely hooked on this book and television series. With the TV version, I do need to read carefully to not get confused with the different story arcs and how the characters look in my mind versus the actors. This is book 7 in a series and I loved it! It’s hard to believe, but even at book 7 the series is still rocking the story. The next and final book should bring it all together, right? Metaphysical space opera at its finest.

From Goodreads: “In the thousand-sun network of humanity’s expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace. In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices. On the lost colony world of Laconia, a hidden enemy has a new vision for all of humanity and the power to enforce it.”

The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1)
By R.F. Kuang
Unique. Familiar. Graphically horrible. Drugs. Hatred. Revenge. And yet she has built an amazing world. Young girl protagonist who struggles with everything and which this reader questions whether I even like her as a character. Themes of poverty, classism, and gender in this world of magic and power. It’s a debut novel from Kuang and the stage is set to continue exploring the story of Rin, an orphan girl from the Rooster Province.

From Goodreads, “When Rin aced the Keju, the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies, it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard, the most elite military school in Nikan, was even more surprising.”